Part 2 – Human augmentation technologies

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that applies computation and analysis tools to

capture and interpret large sets of biological data.^13 It is closely linked to collection and

analytics but takes the science of understanding the human body to the next level by

looking at molecular biology, macromolecular structures and genomics. Bioinformatics

could be the key to understanding how pharmaceutical treatments differ between

individuals, thereby laying the foundations of personalised medicine. Advances in artificial

intelligence, and as our understanding of the relationship between genotype (germline)

and phenotype (somatic) genetics improves, the utility of bioinformatics is likely to

accelerate.

13 Bayat, A., (2002), British Medical Journal (Clinical research edition), ‘Science, medicine, and the future:

Bioinformatics’.

The neural revolution could be part of driving advances in human

well-being that exceed those brought about by the industrial and digital

revolutions.

The Royal Society, iHuman Perspectives, September 2019

CRISPR controversy

The most controversial use of CRISPR was in

November 2018 when Chinese scientists, led by

He Jiankui, used it for germline modification in

human embryos to make them less susceptible

to HIV. The procedure has still not been

independently verified but it nevertheless shocked

the global scientific community amid concerns

that the technology was too premature for use

on humans, and that it needlessly risked the

long-term health of the three consequent babies

and their offspring. As a result of the experiment,

He Jiankui was jailed for three years for ‘illegal

medical practice’ and the scientific community

moved to establish a moratorium on further work

in this area. Of note, Jiankui’s technique involved

disabling a gene for a protein called CCR5 which,

when deleted from mice in a separate study,

was found to improve their cognitive abilities.

This has led some to speculate that CRISPR

may already have been used, possibly

inadvertently, to enhance human traits.

“